KU lacks departments and disciplines

Karachi University, one of the premier varsities of Pakistan
Karachi, April 04: University of Karachi (KU), one of the premier varsities of Pakistan, still lacks many vital departments and disciplines and
students are deprived of varsity level education in those particular
disciplines.

The KU still lacks departments and institutes for
important subjects like law, disaster management, nuclear physics,
defence studies, forestry, medicine, music and theatre, archaeology and
anthropology.

The faculty of Pharmacy under Dean Prof Dr Ghazala H
Rizwani has departments of pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmaceutics,
pharmacology, and pharmacognosy.

The facility of Management and
Administrative Sciences under Dean Prof Dr Abuzar Wajidi has the
departments of business administration, commerce and public
administration.

The facility of medicine is being run under Dean
Professor SM Abbas Hussain and seven medical and dental colleges are
affiliated with it, including the Karachi Medical and Dental College.
However, the KU itself doesn't run any medical college, department or
medical school. The same case is with the faculty of law under Dean Prof
Khursheed A Hashmi.

Pro Vice-Chancellor Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi,
when contacted by PPI, said that KU covers almost all disciplines. She,
however, admitted that there was a need of certain departments like
disaster management, music and theatre, law and veterinary medicine. At
the same time she emphasised that instead of establishing new
departments the existing departments should be upgraded.

Prof
Kazmi further added that the existing departments should design
certificate, diploma and postgraduate courses. "Right now there are 58
departments and 23 institutes in our university".

She admitted
the fact that her varsity has limited funding and scarce resources for
establishing new departments whereas old department buildings need to be
repaired.

Pro VC also pointed out that one main library is not
enough to cover all the 58 disciplines although every department has its
own seminar library 'but still we need more libraries so that students
could be facilitated'. She also stressed on the need to extend the
retirement age of professors from 60 to 65 years.

She further
affirmed that besides departments, the decision for a four-storied
students alumni building is in pipeline as its very necessary to have a
place where meetings of management, students activities, food court and
mini mart could be established so that students could be benefitted.

Quality
Enhancement Cell Director, Prof Muhammad Sajidin when asked about the
need of increasing departments in KU, said that there is a wide range
array of disciplines and so there is an obvious need to introduce new
departments in the KU.

He elaborated that for opening a medical
school it would also need a tertiary care hospital so that students of
medicine can practice within the varsity. Commenting on the need of
department of forestry he expressed his view that department of forestry
could be setup outside the city limits as students of forestry needs a
practical demonstration of forests so it is not possible to set up such a
facility at the present campus premises. He accepted that it would be
difficult for the students to commute in case such a department or
facility that is set up outside the city limits.

He said opening
new departments and facilities is not an easy job, as it needs hiring an
experienced faculty, setting up laboratories, libraries and other
facilities. He said this requires a lot of financial resources, besides
approval from the statutory bodies. ppi

Software show at KU held
Karachi: The Skaikh Zaid Islamic Centre, University of Karachi (KU),
organised a software exhibition at its premises here on Saturday.

The
software programmes invented by the students of the Centre were
displayed at the exhibition. The software related to various walks of
life, including hospital information system, school management system
and textile industries were included in the display.

KU Pro-Vice
Chancellor Prof Dr Nasiruddin inaugurated the exhibition. Dr Nasiruddin
said that Pakistani youth were well equipped with abilities to form
computer software of international standards. He said that presence of
high quality software at the exhibition revealed the vigorous hard work
of both students and teachers.

Besides, a large number of
participants, Shaikh Zaid Islamic Centre's Director Dr Noor Ahmed
Shehnaz and others were also present. Daily times

Pros and cons of HEC devolution
Karachi: Chairman of Higher Education Commission (HEC), Dr Javed Leghari on Saturday
firmly opposed the devolution of HEC to the provinces, saying it would
be a dismemberment of HEC and not devolution.

Talking to the
media after meeting with Sindh Senior Minister for Education the
constitution is supreme for everyone. He said that the problem was that
higher education and some other matters of education were on the federal
legislative list 1 and 2 which were still in force. He reminded that
only the concurrent list was abolished after the passage of the 18th
Constitution Amendment, and the scope of the higher education is beyond
the sphere of concurrent list.

However, Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq
disagreed with Dr Leghari, asserting after the approval from the federal
cabinet the subject of education is duly transferred to the provinces
and the Higher Education Commission does not exist, constitutionally.

Pir
Mazhar said that higher education was also a provincial matter. He
regretted that in the history of HEC there was not a single meeting held
between the HEC officials and provincial handle all subjects devolved
to them including education. "We will manage each and every thing which
has been done by the HEC."

He said that education was purely a
provincial subject as promised in the 1973 constitution, but the actual
devolvement took place in 2010.

He, however, said that Mian Raza Rabbani shall arrange a meeting soon in which Dr Javed Leghari will elaborate his reservations.

Dr
Leghari told the media that there were a lot of issues including
standard of higher education, authenticity of varsity degrees and such
other sensitive matters, which the provinces could not handle aptly.

He
said that the Chairman of Constitutional Implementation Committee
Senator Mian Raza Rabbani had called many meetings regarding devolution
of federal education ministry to the provinces but did not invite him
(Dr Leghari) or any vice-chancellor of any public university in these
meetings.

He said that later he met Mian Raza Rabbani along with
12 vice-chancellors of public universities and informed him about their
reservations regarding the devolution of higher education. The news

US scientist visits SSUET
Karachi: Academic institutions must be given a chance to contribute to
policy making and the time has come to put education at top priority.

This
was stated by US based scientist Dr Shaheer Ahmed Khan while speaking
at a reception held in his honour by the Sir Syed University of
Engineering and Technology (SSUET).

Dr Khan, the senior
Aligarian, also said that existence without education for a nation
particularly in present era was just a dream that could never come true.

He said that universities must give due importance to the
endowment, even the heavily funded universities in the West had
endowment accounts. "Under the brand of Aligarh Endowment, we are
guiding competent and deserving students and supporting them to get
higher education in the universities of America and Europe without any
discrimination.

The funds are provided directly to the
institutions for education of the students," Dr Khan said. He also
emphasised to develop such organisations or associations to help
students to get higher education in foreign countries and offered his
support and guidance for this noble cause. ppi

Nafisa Shah gets Ph.D from Oxford
Karachi: The University of Oxford has awarded a Ph.D degree
to an MNA from Sindh and former district nazim of Khairpur Nafisa Shah
for her study on honour killing in Upper Sindh.

Praising the
quality of the thesis, the examiners said that the argument and the data
mustered to support the theses were original, persuasive and lucidly
and coherently presented.

Teachers protest
Larkana: College professors and lecturers took to the streets here on Saturday in favour
of their demands for timescale, withdrawal of transfers orders of their
colleagues and posting of the promoted professors.

Addressing
the protesters, central vice-president of SPLA Syed Asghar Shah and
Prof Moharram Kalhoro criticised what they described as government's
double-faced policy.

They said that on one hand the government had
awarded timescale to primary school teachers, but was reluctant in case
of college teachers.

They criticised the Sindh education minister
for what they said inhuman treatment meted out to professors in Karachi
where batons had been used against them during a protest. Dawn

Engineering student kidnapped
Karachi: Family members of a kidnapped engineering student, Azib Imtiaz, have appealed
to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, to take
notice of the kidnapping of Azib and direct the law enforcement agencies
to recover him.

Addressing a press conference at the Karachi
Press Club, Azib's father Nafees Ahmed Qidwai said that he along with
his son Azib were going to offer Fajar prayers in Steel Town area when
unidentified armed persons kidnapped Azib, a final year student of
engineering university.

Qidwai said that the incident, witnessed
by area people and security guards, was reported to Steel Town police.
He also appealed to the authorities concerned to take steps for the
recovery of his son. The news